King Vidor’s silent epic The Big Parade (1925), starring John Gilbert and Renée Adorée, will have a special screening at Film Forum on Sunday, April 16 at 4pm. Steve Sterner, Film Forum’s longtime silent film accompanist, will perform his own score.

The screening commemorates the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into World War I. After three years of war in Europe, the previously “non-interventionist” U.S. entered the conflict on April 6, 1917, when President Wilson and Congress declared war on Germany.

The Big Parade stars silent super-star Gilbert as a spoiled rich kid who joins the army to become a “doughboy,” and is then shipped off to the war in France, where he falls in love with peasant girl Adorée.  With its human moments (Gilbert teaching Adorée how to chew gum) and horrifying scenes of trench warfare, The Big Parade is one of the first anti-war films to come out of Hollywood – and the biggest blockbuster hit of the 1920.

In 1998, when legendary songwriter/screenwriter Adolph Green was asked to pick a silent film for screening at Film Forum, he chose The Big Parade – for him, the most memorable film of his youth.

35mm. Approx. 130 mins.